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Open Data, a key to open future gates

Open data as the name suggests, is data that is available openly for it’s general use, publicly. Users get a chance to study it & project different values associated with it.

As it is named OPEN DATA, this data can come from any source like individuals, companies or governments and is available with limited restrictions from copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control and that’s what make it special.

However, the extent to which information is truly open varies in 5 ways:

Accessibility

Machine

Readability

Cost and rights for reuse

Redistribution

Open Data becomes much more helpful in certain cases where data is essentially required to open new gates for further digging into the specific area. Many individuals and organisations collect a broad range of different types of data in order to perform their tasks. Here are some of the fields where open data can be really helpful:

Government Data

Open data, especially open government data, is a tremendous resource that is as yet largely untapped. These days, a lot of government data, which used to be confidential earlier has been made open for public use. Governments are particularly significant in this respect, both because of the quantity and centrality of the data it collects, but also because most of the government data is public data by law, and therefore could be made open and made available for others to use.

Why that would be interesting?

It is already possible to point to a large number of areas where open government data is creating value. Some of these areas include:

Transparency and democratic control

Participation

Self-empowerment

Improved or new private products and services

Innovation

Improved efficiency of government services

Improved effectiveness of government services

Impact measurement of policies

New knowledge from combined data sources and patterns in large data volume.This untapped potential can be unleashed if we turn public government data into open data. This will only happen, however, if it is really open, i.e. if there are no restrictions (legal, financial or technological) to its re-use by others. Every restriction will exclude people from re-using the public data, and make it harder to find valuable ways of doing that. For the potential to be realized, public data needs to be open data.

Scientists & Researchers gain more insights into the big government organizations which help them to study the stats & to be able to get more insights for past years to be more precise for future researches.

Greener & better informed

Open data helped a lot of organizations, position their products & services based on the data provided by various organizations and thus stepping into environment friendly technologies & supporting the “GO GREEN” concept.

Some of the industries that can make use of open data:

Oil & Gas Industry

Measure carbon emissions to find out the solutions for a sustainable development

Take into account the usage & variations in price of gasoline & diesel industry

The chart below shows the amount of CO2 emissions in two years, country wise and thus helped to identify the geographical emissions of the resources:

Health and Pharmaceutical Industry

Open data plays a major role when it comes to health analytics. Previous available data has always helped scientists & researchers to keep an eye on the figures & thus motivating them to go deeper into the field for further analysis.

Some of the areas been helped by open data are:

Invigilating epidemiology of a disease internationally

Improving patient outcomes

Virulence and strains of a disease most commonly found around the globe

Mobility & mortality of a disease

Enabling patients to make informed choices from among the healthcare options available to them

Here’s an example of historical outbreaks, number of deaths caused by Ebola virus presented with the help of open data available at CDC (Centers of Disease Control & Prevention):

Open data in electronics & computer sciences:

Open data is viewed as a transformative force for change and a critical part of our future. Apps are the industry buzz words for monetized application development and open data is the new enabler for economic growth through use in such applications. Small, focused applications based upon one or more datasets, delivered in a streamlined and accessible way, are changing the lives of countless people around the world.
Apart from the never ending list , here are some of the areas where open data can help in electronics & computer science industry:

Making data available to technicians and thus assisting with diagnostics

Sharing data with other on-board equipment helps collectively accomplishing tasks that no single component could achieve individually

Open sources of data available from major companies, not as a part of their legal curriculum but also the best way to demonstrate their growth in the market, to be able to be foreseen by various share & stake holders. To be able to display an innovative & energetic image.

Below is an example of the world’s top 12 companies spending on advertising: